


6 Strings

by morepopthanpunk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Drabble, Heartbreak, Heartbroken Harry, M/M, Sad Harry, Songfic, harry learns to play guitar, idk who lou is with, maybe grimshaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4889398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morepopthanpunk/pseuds/morepopthanpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These six strings are my saviors <br/>They never hurt me...</p>
            </blockquote>





	6 Strings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paynekinkliam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paynekinkliam/gifts).



 

Pain is a funny thing.

It’s all subjective of course.

Harry didn’t think anything could surpass the pain of getting tattoos. It was not all relief and artistic lines inked onto his skin; they were memories that burned and ached for sometimes days afterwards depending on where he got them. They were constant and rough, but a reminder that pain eventually faded…

Then he broke up with Louis, and again, had no idea that he could feel so much agony. Years he had wasted that he’d never get back, a friendship based almost entirely on lies had crumbled before his eyes and he did nothing to save it. But his pain was internalized this time- a quite literal heartache. No one really likes breakups, how could he have expected it not to hurt? Especially when people continually brought up the fact that it happened- wanting to pour salt over wounds which never looked like they were going to heal anyway.

The first time he tried to learn to play guitar, it combined both of these pains into one. He couldn’t play without thinking back to all the times Louis and he had tried to teach one another, or they’d picked up one together and attempted an improvised melody no matter how awful they sounded. And on top of that, his desperation to learn resulted in relentless practice hours, dents and scars upon his skin, the metallic strings ripping him to shreds more than Louis’ words ever could have.   
The guitar itself, no longer collecting dust in their once-shared room, became a reminder, in contrast with his tattoos- that some pain was more permanent.

~

He had a good run with Louis now that he thought about it... It had been six years, they were the golden couple. There were even rumours Louis was going to propose... It didn't matter, though Things weren't working. Louis found someone else. So he left Harry.  Just like that.

It was as if Louis had been faking everything with Harry. That seemed like the logical conclusion to draw from how quickly he’d moved on, and how happy he seemed about it. Harry didn’t know for how long… How long had he been oblivious to everyone around him- all actors in a play- a play with his emotions, a test against his strength.

Well whatever Louis had done, oh what a performance it was. The façade of love and emotion he’d poured into this ‘relationship’ was worthy of praise. Such a beauty and grace with which he’d played the role of someone Harry thought he could trust…

Harry lost everything when he lost Louis. Not just trust and hope, but one of his only real friends. Now destined to play with the shadows in his room- cast by the glow of his phone and any light that trickled past the curtains by his window. The bathroom lights became his friends too, with fading scars on his wrists illuminated at all times- another reminder of pain and how it can’t be that easily forgotten.

~

Harry saw life like one winding road. He saw himself falling off the path each time some sort of pain in his life became too unbearable. Each time you get up, it feels like it’s getting harder. That’s because you’re not just getting back onto the road of life, but you’re building an entirely new path just to get there. The pain you feel before it gets better can be hard and confusing, but you have to do it. It’s your choice to remain lost forever, or risk the new path untaken.

Harry liked taking risks.

Harry went back to that music shop. The one he'd once despised. The one he didn't understand Louis’ fascination with; until his eyes were laid upon the instrument he’d never really considered before; the instrument that soothed Niall’s worries at insane hours of the morning, and brought joy upon millions of faces. Maybe it could do the same for him. He had nothing left to lose, almost throwing his money on the countertop and walking away with a new wooden body to hold rather than Louis’.

The first sounds he managed to produce naturally reflected his inner emotions, painful twangs: aftershocks of a tremulous past. Whilst each strum, it felt like a thousand lashes- stinging, throbbing, stemming from his fingers throughout his entire being. The pain was somehow a cure for the madness within, masking his inner turmoil. It became an outlet for him- something not suspicious yet still giving him the same satisfaction from feeling something real in return for the emotions which could by no other means be validated.

Over time, it became easier to play. Beautiful melodies and rhythms formed and held Harry together- healing any and all scars he’d accumulated over the years and since Louis had left.

Those six strings of the guitar…. Something so simplistic and fine- It seemed an unfathomable concept how they could so quickly become Harry’s saviours.  As he released the strings from their tension, he could feel stress subsiding in his shoulders, the emotions flowing out through the body of the instrument set upon his knee. He felt the pain from the pressure upon his fingertips slowly ebb away and urge him on to continue.

The pencil no longer burned when situated between his fingers, but rather the muscles stung when his hand cramped up from having written so much. A poet on steroids is what Harry became, words flowing like the blood through his veins. Finally free from the chains his relationship, even after its glory days, had somehow kept him bound in.

Louis had broken Harry’s heart. He began to realise this the more he played, the more he wrote, the more he plucked at the strings and thought about how Louis had so easily played Harry- plucking instead on his heartstrings and begging him, enticing him to fall in love with a liar.

With each lyric, and each story Harry was able to craft, he realised that enough was enough. He would have lived his life, even if it meant saying goodbye to the idea of Louis forever.

Harry learnt to play, Harry learnt to sing, Harry learnt to channel everything into the language understood around the world. Harry played music for the masses, received standing ovations for his performances, but unlike Louis’- his stemmed from truth.

At one of this shows, Louis showed up front row with the man by his side, the man he’d apparently left Harry for.  Harry continued to sing, continued to hold up his guitar, but now his holding up himself too. He feared that just seeing Louis would bring back all the memories he’d sent away.

Harry let the words ring out and echo around him, but now he also admired the man Louis was with, with venomous jealousy replacing the previously burning green passion in his eyes.

Harry played a game with himself, he did it often as a lonely child and couldn't help but continue it now, at a time he'd never felt lonelier. He imagined conversations between him and random strangers, struck up from a topic point at random- the first thing to arrive in his mind.

On this occasion Harry studied the man Louis was with instead of the any other thousand people in the room. He noted his torn up shoes and his un-styled hair and the way his poorly tailored suit hung off his soft shoulders. There were infinite things Harry could bring up to discuss in a hypothetical conversation yet all he could think was  _congratulations_. Congratulations you've won the heart of a man like him; a man like Louis who deserved so much better. Congratulations you scored the likely love of your live, congratulations that amongst all else you seem to have enough sense not to throw him and your life away.

Harry eventually made eye contact with Louis and he dropped it immediately; a weak feeling not even washing over him, but rather creeping up on him from behind. He felt ashamed, he felt sorry, and he felt sad, seeing how wonderfully things turned out for Louis and how desperate Harry’s life seemed; playing on work from memories never forgotten just to get by. Toying with the fingers on either hand in idle attempt to find a distraction he found the scars lacing his fingers rather than his wrist.

Harry continued to play through the end of his set, trying to let go of the pain and focus on how these six strings were his saviours. They could never hurt him like Louis had. They never would.

A standing ovation was what awaited Harry once he blinked back his tears. A standing ovation for an hours long performance in return for the years of acting Louis had given him.

He allowed a smile down at them; Louis and his new man and walking off the stage, barely bidding the crowd goodbye, let his feet carry him home…  losing eye contact with Louis forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an original song written by one of the girls at my school :)


End file.
